Recent mobile information communication terminals such as smart phones and pad-type PCs support a touch user interface (TUI). The TUI displays various types of keypads (or keyboards) such as a Qwerty keyboard and a 12 keypad on a display screen. When a user touches a virtual keypad, the TUI recognizes the touched keypad as an input signal. Such a virtual key input device provides diversity of tools, and enables a user to freely select a device. Furthermore, terminals having the TUI mounted therein provide an intuitional user interface (UI). Therefore, although the terminals having the TUI mounted therein are relatively expensive, they have high product competitiveness.
In the conventional terminals supporting the TUI, however, although the virtual keypad occupies a considerably large area of the display screen, the background image of the keypad is provided as single-color buttons. That is, the virtual keypad occupying a considerably large display space is provided in software. However, the display space has not been utilized in a business way.
A typical mobile information communication terminal has a limited space which may be utilized for a business service. However, it is important for the recent business services to secure a space where an interactive service with a user may be performed. This is the latest technology field where UI technology aimed for realizing convenient writing and easy learning and UX technology aimed for satisfying writing pleasure and latent needs are merged.
Techniques for providing a background image include a technique related to ‘skin’. Korean Patent Laid-open Application No. 2003-0073957 discloses an apparatus and method for controlling skin modification as the technique related to ‘skin’. The apparatus for controlling skin modification is used in a mobile communication terminal including a display device capable of displaying characters or symbols corresponding to the characters and a select keypad for selection, and includes an internal memory having an internal memory address area and an external memory address area, an external memory configured to store various skin data, and a controller configured to read skin data from the external memory and set the read skin data when a skin is selected in case where the external memory is mounted.
However, the conventional technique and the techniques related thereto do not provide a business mode based on UX, and have nothing to do with a virtual keypad provided by a TUI. This is because it is only a short time since the information communication devices such as smart phones emerged, and the development of techniques related to UX has not come to maturity.